Help kinless transman escape and attend Swedish grad school

The TL;DR: I'm a trans academic who comes from a background with few means who was accepted to their dream grad school that will let them move to Europe and leave a bad situation in the US, but the amount of liquid money needed up front for getting the residence permit (visa) is astronomical and on a tight deadline. Politics means FAFSA/US loans and grants cannot be used anymore, and scholarships are processed after the deadlines. I need to raise 50,000 SEK/$5100~ by May 15 for the university, and 127,008 SEK/$13200~ ASAP after that, ideally before June 15, to start the permit/visa application. I do not and have never had family to help. This is likely the only shot I'll have both to get out and establish residency elsewhere, as well as have any kind of chance at being a researcher and academic. Details and records are below.

Thank you.

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There is some weird and twisted irony that getting accepted into your top university program, at a (nearly) top 100 global university, fills you with more dread and uncertainty than if you hadn't. Because it's giving hope before ripping it away because the chances of being able to accept it are dismally low. It's also my only acceptance as I could only afford to apply to a few schools during applications.

I'm Jay and I'm a transgender man pursuing a career as an educator and history professor who recently graduated magna cum laude and was just accepted into Uppsala University in Sweden for their Master's in Early Modern History with its groundbreaking Gender and Work research project. And I am over the moon but terrified as well, because acceptance wasn't the hard part. Competitive program or not, it's actually getting there and getting the government to approve the residence permit for study. As a transgender man in America who escaped an abusive family, and had been deathly sick god knows how many times now and kept destroying my savings with medical expenses (the doctors did very recently diagnose me with a genetic immunoglobulin deficiency that apparently is partly to blame, I suppose that's some comfort and validation at least), I've barely kept my head afloat. Honestly, I am only alive because there were people who have been kind to me when I needed it. And I have always appreciated that from the bottom of my soul. Humans need support networks to stay alive, and when you don't have that at birth, or have generational wealth or even healthy genetics, it's generally rough. Especially when it comes to college, as most people have to rely the support of their families, even if that support just comes from a place to live during the summer. I don't need to tell anyone that it is a hard life for so many of us.

To immigrate to Sweden as a non-EU resident works for studies, you have to 1) pay your university their first installment of $5100~ and their due date is May 15, 2) only AFTER paying that, can you apply for the residence permit for one year at a time which can take 60-90 days to process, and then 3) show up front in that application that you can pay living expenses for that whole year in advance.

Yeah. This is the insulting truth of attending as a non-EU student. Even if top European universities are very cheap compared to to the fees paid at American universities, the "maintenance requirement" means you need a huge savings account set aside at the time of application for the residence permit. This came up a lot in the video call with the fee master, and the expectation and only advice is "have your families take out educational loans." Due to the time processing a permit takes and that my classes start Sept 1, it's a very short time to get that much liquid savings. And while I have a job, it's barely paid the roof over my head and current university fees (that still have their last installment due). You can use an employment contract to count for it as well, but a monthly contractor gig-based position will not qualify. And all my remote work for the last year has been that. I am applying (and in the interview rounds) for other remote positions that would be have real, annual contract with steady pay, and I'll update the fundraiser goals if I get one, but at the moment... in this economy, it is quite difficult to obtain global remote jobs that are that permanent on paper. Thankfully, Uppsala also employs students and I have applied for positions there also. Again, I would need to sign a contract before the deadline of the residence permit, and due to the processing time for the residence permit, said deadline is alarmingly soon. They do not give you much time.

Obviously there are scholarships, and I'll let you in on the other insulting dirty secret. The vast majority of scholarships are decided upon (or even have their deadlines in) mid-summer. They are processed after the deadline when I will have needed to both pay the university and apply.

You heard me. Even the financial team of Uppsala, in a zoom call to us last week, flat-out warned not to even consider them as possibilities for international students who need the permit. You are SOL and need to secure loans from your home country (you cannot get Swedish ones as an American). Which brings us to why not FAFSA, since FAFSA would give me loans? Because, you guessed it, recently due to regulatory issues within the (now closing) Department of Education almost all Swedish universities have withdrawn from the FAFSA program/US direct loans. Most did this after I applied too; it’s fantastic. (See screenshot from Lund, another university which withdrew after I had already applied.) Even though I knew I didn’t have the credit for it, I checked Sallie Mae (like Lund suggested) on a whim, and found out Uppsala can't even be financed by Sallie Mae. It's just flat-out not an option; they simply won't service them. So loans are literally impossible for me, government or private. But I am applying (and have already applied to) a great many scholarships that hopefully will help going forward, even if they’re not helpful for getting the actual permit from the government. There are unfortunately slim pickings for non-STEM programs in Sweden; if you check, 90% of the American-based scholarships for study abroad—notice they say for study abroad while enrolled at a US school—and far fewer are for earning full degrees overseas. But there are a good deal and I am applying for them. (Even if most say they cannot be used for living expenses, only tuition, and so only apply to that 50,000 SEK/$5100...) If anyone has suggestions for even more options to apply to, I will still absolutely take it.

The conversation rate is also proving to be a problem, since when I first got my acceptance letter, it would have cost about $15500 altogether for the permit and............ now it is closing on $19,000. And that is purely because of the USD tanking compared to the SEK in just the last couple weeks. It's legit very scary. Thus I am trying to buffer the funds I need, and move what I can over to SEK quickly, because given the state of the US and the economic choices they’ve been making... I think the dollar is only going to continue to decline over the next couple months. Which is awful timing.

To summarize:

I'm also selling literally everything I own, except critical items like my desktop and sentimental things, which I'll be honest, is devastating; but I will be trying to raise money that way as well. There’s many things I can’t take anyway or leave behind, as I am trying to make this move permanent. I'm sorting all of my things out and taking photos, after which I'll be posting them for sale and mentioning it on my social media.

...I am also probably going to have give up my beloved parrot Bean, who is literally the only being I have in my daily life, and that eats me alive inside and gives me nightmares. It is possible to take him with me, but it would be extremely expensive and cost thousands of dollars extra (a mix of government fees, vet fees, and harder to find housing). If I get fully funded, I might be able to consider it; I have done all the digging into what I would need to do to bring him with me, but it is just wildly inconceivable right now and I struggle to figure out what's best for him. I don't know.

Hilariously, I don't have a fallback school with better funding options, but it's not because I didn't get in: I could only afford to to apply to a single UK school alongside the Swedish universities, since 1) my two top schools were there and 2) you only pay one fee for all applications. And because Sweden makes you rank your applications and processes them in that order; I got into my top pick university right off the get-go my applications to the rest didn't even get processed. Hilarious! I did what every student was taught not to do (because grad school applications with all the transcript orders add up and are expensive): shoot right at the top and somehow I got into that program anyway. Now it's all the money up-front that the government needs to see in order to step foot inside the country.

Speaking to the darker topic of academic and research integrity, America has fast become a desolate landscape where there is no longer freedom to research. A few universities are fighting against federal attempts to dictate curriculum, but it is not enough, and federal funding is caught in a chokehold. It is incredibly dark times ahead, especially for anyone wishing to conduct research or even get employed in higher education. So I promise my deciding to get a degree overseas is not just on a whimsy, not even just as a transgender person wanting to escape an incredibly hostile and increasingly authoritarian landscape that is stripping me of my legal rights, but because it has become the only way in which I will have freedom to pursue academic research and find employment (especially in gender history and the study of propaganda and imperialism). Which brings me to one of my overall points.

This is honestly a grassroots scholarship to attend an amazing world class university that will help me become someone who can help people for hopefully generations to come. (And just... honestly have a chance. I just want to be able to have a chance.) And the system is so goddamn broken and I'm so bitter that it continues to be broken if you aren't from at least a middle class and/or supported background (or STEM) that you know, bring it. Fine. Consider yourselves all at the top of the credits in my Master's thesis, even if I have to list 20,000 $1 donations. It's also literally life-saving as... this is a bad time to be trans without a social safety net where I live. But I'm confident in my ability to keep paying for myself once there because it is honestly so much cheaper than what I've been paying to put myself through the double undergraduate I had to do here. The cost of living is so much lower. For the first time in my life I'll have full free healthcare--including mental and dental. It's just the liquid funds up front to step foot in the country. The fee master at Uppsala also told us incoming international students there will be quite a few scholarships for current students going forward. And thankfully, my program is at most two years, with the option to complete (and be PhD eligible still) in one year, so I don't have much longer to pay any tuition or student fees. PhD candidates in many other countries, including Sweden, are treated as full employment and job slots you apply for and pay extremely well. So the end in in sight, I just need a little help getting there.

Anyone who's met me knows how much I love learning. How excited I get over the latest factoid I unearth and have to share with everyone, and how I'm like a dog with a bone when I catch scent of something I think has been missed or overlooked and will pour over stacks of books for hundreds of hours to unearth because it's fun (and a little compulsive) for me. I've been fighting so hard the last 4 years to fund myself through school so I can pursue this dream of being a researcher and teaching others—and more recently in realizing how dire and important it is for us to archive and safeguard history from those who would try to burn it down and say it never happened. While my plan is to do my thesis in gender history, and certainly that will always be a major area of interest for me, recent events are making me wonder if I'm not in a very good position to attempt to accurately record and report on current events through a measured historical lens (from outside the country, where it's safe; just today, there was an executive order demanding the investigation of an author for treason just because their book criticized the administration) and collecting for a concise and interpretive account as history happens. While this would probably be a private undertaking, I think it's one of the utmost importance. Especially in terms of paying special attention to populations that may not hit "mainstream" historical attention as much, such as the plight of LGBT individuals. (As if any historian is "mainstream," but you know.)

Please help support me in this last leg of the journey. Please help me accept this once in a lifetime opportunity to get out. Asking for even a dollar makes me want to vomit because I hate asking; it makes me feel horrible and like an utter failure, but in the two weeks since I was accepted, I have been exhausting literally every other option first to see what I could do. And there is simply no other option that can happen by the deadline needed for the residence/immigration permit, unless I get very lucky in signing a contract by then with either a remote job that will let me work in Sweden, or a campus job. I promise I am putting all my energy into applying, as well as selling off my life's possessions. Literally, I don't even know where I'll be living if can't pull this off, since I have to vacate my campus apartment this summer. It's a lot.

I should also say that I am more than willing to accept something akin a loan as well, since loans through normal means are no longer accepted, and I would sign documents as such. I'm also more than willing to work for it. You can contact me privately at oldvagabond soul at gmail dot com. (This email address is not my main address, as this is public, so I know it's going to be spammed to oblivion.)

Thank you.